ROBERT DANIEL rubin
Personalized Writing Instruction. Middle-School and High-School Teacher of Language Arts and History.
TUTORING AND TEACHING
(students sixth grade and older)
During the past two years, I've seen more and more students relying on AI to “write” their essays for them. This becomes a trap. By not pushing themselves to formulate their own arguments, analyze literature, and use language effectively, they deprive themselves of crucial academic skills. Gaining entry to the college of their choice and flourishing in the professional world requires mastering language arts. Students pay a price for not learning to write well. Taking the easy way out shuts doors and forecloses possibilities.
I teach middle school and high school language arts at a private school. I also offer one-on-one instruction in language arts, with an emphasis on essay writing, to students in sixth through tenth grade. In my tutoring, I help learners open doors to academic and professional success. My students learn to read essays and stories critically and write more effectively. They review the fundamentals of rhetoric. They study texts in their historical context. They sharpen their ability to write persuasive essays, gaining ease and comfort in a process that can seem overwhelming. Many of my students come to enjoy essay writing in a new way by experiencing it as participation in an ongoing conversation. Everyone wants people to listen to them and take them seriously, and writing effectively allows that to happen.
In my personalized instruction, my students and I move at whatever pace best suits them. Whether they seek to hone their already sharp writing skills or overcome their fear and resistance to writing, they make satisfying progress in our work together.
CIVIC AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
I have laid groundwork for my next project, which will explore how meditation and prayer affect the ways in which individuals conduct themselves in the civic sphere and understand themselves as political partisans. I will consider if and how spiritual activities open spaces in which people whose belief systems are at odds with one another's can tentatively transcend their impasses.
CONTESTING IDENTITY IN THE Courts
The John Archibald Campbell Courthouse in Mobile, Alabama, home to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama and site for a good amount of my research.
Much of my writing, speaking, and teaching of adult audiences has focused on the definitions of democracy and justice espoused by self-identified Americans of faith. More generally, I have explored how religious conservatives in the second half of the twentieth century used or resisted the United States judicial system.
CONTACT ME:
Curriculum vitae and résumé available on request.